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Abstract:
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In this study , I analyze how recent South Korean cinema has responded to the forces of globalization by appropriating these influences both on and off screen . In particular , by situating Korean blockbuster within its local , regional and global contexts , I highlight the ways in which the identity politics of Korean blockbuster complicate our understanding of globalization and national cinema .
The second chapter focuses on the globalization of recent South Korean cinema , with critical attention given to hybridity as an industrial strategy and as shaped by intra -regional co -productions . The third chapter analyzes four Korean films to represent the characteristics of Korean blockbuster and Korean national issues .
Through the two primary chapters , I argue that Korean blockbuster is a hybrid form between national cinema and Hollywood blockbusters . It is a local answer to the accelerating forces of globalization at home , evident in the growing direct competition with Hollywood blockbusters . In fact , despite the growing reliance on the big -budget blockbusters , the recent rise in the domestic market share of local films against Hollywood movies owes much to the high -profile success of many of Korean blockbusters .
The significance of the case of Korean Cinema is multifaceted in our comprehensive understanding of globalization and hybridity . It illustrates that globalization as hybridization takes place at multiple levels and in multiple directions beyond the conventional global -local paradigm . In noting intra -regional exchanges as integral to the construction of today’s hybridities , my study has contended that regionalization and localization strongly contribute to the globalization process . More important , by locating hybridity outside of Western hegemony in the intraregional cultural dynamic , it also resists the Eurocentric approach that tends to view hybridity as only produced through local appropriation of the global /Hollywood model . This is often implied even in the recognition of hybridity as a resistance against hegemonic power . |